Ryan's Suffering

by Lloyd Paulson

  "Can’t do that. My job right now is to get you into that limo."

  I peered up at him, a sly smile playing on my lips. "What if I jump into the bay, instead? Does that fuck up your plans?"

  Tom shrugged. "Then I jump in after you. As I said, I have a job to do."

  "Be a pity to ruin that suit. Costs more than a couple of my mortgage payments."

  Tom said nothing, and stood unmoving at the edge of the concrete.

  I thought about Trish. I thought about the kids. I considered Tanner. I considered the shoe-tree, and I considered my encounters with my grandfather. I thought about Jessica and Sarah, replaying the episode from her kitchen. There was a lot I didn’t know, and it didn’t make any sense. Neither did what happened to Trish, my missing father, or my missing children. I contemplated jumping into the bay, snickering at the thought of Tom having to jump in after me.

  I staggered to my feet. "Fuck it, Tom. Let’s go see your boss, then."

  Part II: The Fog Rises

  Eleven years prior, in Southern Michigan farm country…

  A Walk in the Woods

  "Truth is the torch that gleams through the fog without dispelling it."—Claude A. Helvetius (French Philosopher, 1715-1771)

  "Crack!" A branch snapped behind Ryan. Ryan Vischer stopped walking down the rutted logging path through the woods between his girlfriend’s house and his family’s farm, and turned around, curious about whatever animal had stepped on the branch. Whatever had stepped on the branch had to be big and heavy, in order to make that much noise. A deer, for example, would have the weight, but deer were very cautious by nature. By design, deer were stealthy. They could flit through the woods, barely making a sound, and if they stepped on a branch, it was usually by accident.

  Ryan peered about, but didn’t see anything. The woods were very still, and the sun hung extremely low on the horizon, barely filtering through the trees on this cold and brisk November afternoon in Southern Michigan farm country. It was chilly, but there wasn’t a single breath of a breeze. What few dried and browned leaves that remained on the trees of the patch of woods between the farms hung listlessly, and every few moments or so, one of the few remaining leaves left on the branches within Ryan’s wide angle of view would let go of a branch and fall freely and listlessly to the ground.

  A deer, after having stepped on and broken a branch, would have stood stock-still. However, Ryan didn’t see any deer within sight. Even though the deer would have stood relatively still, it would have been moving its head and ears about, scanning the woods for any danger that may have heard the breaking branch, and Ryan, no stranger to the woods, would have easily spotted any deer very easily. All else was quiet.

  Too quiet, actually. Ryan strained his ears, but all he heard was a light high-pitched "scree!" from his ears from the preternatural quiet of the woods. No chipmunks were scampering about in the late afternoon sun. No sparrows were flitting about between the trees, arguing between themselves. Even the usual noisy sand hill cranes that flocked out in the fields by the swamps were being abnormally quiet. Quite a ways off, Ryan could barely hear and make out the V-shape through the trees of a flock of geese landing out on what was probably the Galbraith farm, but that was it. In this section of woods between his farm and his girlfriend’s farm, it was ghostly quiet.

  Ryan cocked his head, listening for the rhythm of the woods. Nature has a sound all of her own, you simply have to listen to it. If you spend enough time with nature, you learn her patterns. The woods are alive, and attuned to everything that happens within her boundaries. The simple entry of a human into the woods sets off an entire alarm system, if you know how to listen for it; the shrill cry of the birds that flit away, alerting the squirrels nearby, and the chipmunks look up, see you, chatter and scamper away. Squirrels come out and investigate from high above, and chatter their warning, which spreads like wildfire with the other squirrels through the high canopy above, and within minutes, every animal within a few hundred yards is well aware of your presence in the woods. If you just stumble blindly in, and don’t know to listen for this, you miss this whole alarm system going off all around you.

  It is possible to slide into the woods, undetected. That’s real woodsmanship at work. You have to go-to-ground, become like an animal yourself. Move like an animal. Think like an animal. Hunt like an animal. Most humans just trudge blindly into the woods, clodding along at a steady pace. It’s necessary to take on a mindset, think like an Indian, stalking prey. No rhythmic even steps. Slow, deliberate stalking movements, with no sudden jerks. No noise. Steps so soft and delicate—not heel first, but toe first—that the leaves don’t crunch. It’s awkward, but it’s possible, and with practice, it can become second nature. Ryan could do it, very easily.

  However, Ryan was doing none of these things, there was no reason too, and he was heading home in a hurry. It was chilly, he only had on a light jacket, and the sun would set soon. In addition, he had some chores to do before dinner, and he wanted to get them done to avoid irking his father.

  Still, the unnatural stillness of the woods bugged him on a very visceral level. He turned around slowly, moving stealthily now out of habit, scanning the woods for any movement, such as the telltale flicker of a squirrel’s tail as he’s inspected from a distance by these ever present sentinels, or perhaps the odd and quick cocking of a sparrow’s head; but there was nothing. Ryan coughed lightly, hoping to startle something into moving, but still there was nothing, and that bugged the living shit out of him.

  He could feel his stomach tighten, and an odd crawling sensation working its way up from the base of his testicles and across his stomach. It was creeping him out, and the deepening gloom wasn’t helping either.

  He reached into his jacket and pulled out a heavily worn pack of cigarettes. Just one to ease the nerves. His parents, and especially his father, would kill him for smoking at eighteen. It might be legal, but that didn't mean his parents would accept it. Most teenagers were exaggerating when they say kill, but Ryan suspected his father possessed enough volatility in his temper, and smoking was enough of a transgression for him to commit actual homicide if Ryan was caught with possession of the cigarettes. However, the creepy-crawly sensation that was raising goose bumps was freaking Ryan out, and he needed something to calm his nerves.

  Ryan understood that he was far too old and experienced to be afraid of anything in the woods. Human is the top dog predator in the food chain in the woods; hence the whole alarm system that went off when a human entered the woods. Granted, there might be a pack of coyotes out here, or a pack of stray dogs, either of which would be trouble to be dealt with, but both would be noisy on approach and he was too far south to worry about other top-level predators such as wolves or bears that inhabited Michigan. Although there were consistent rumors of cougars that kept popping up, and every once in awhile someone managed to capture a photo on a game trail camera even, although the DNR (Department of Natural Resources or Neutered Retards) insisted that there weren’t any cougars in the state. However, even for wolves and bears, they didn’t range this far south, and even if they were they tended to steer clear of humans on general principle. Therefore, for the most part, he was just being chickenshit for no apparent reason, and Ryan felt a cigarette was justified in these conditions. A little something to calm the nerves. That’s all.

  Ryan resumed walking down the old logging road, his feet crunching in the leaves as he walked and smoked. The creepy crawly sensation still stayed with him, and he was jacked on adrenaline and nicotine. He needed to redirect his thinking in another direction, to avoid flipping the fuck out completely, which he didn’t think would be too hard—he just left his girlfriend’s farm after a very pleasant afternoon with her. Happy thoughts were easy to come by, today.

  Ryan had hitched a ride home on the bus with her to her house. In Michigan, the farm country split into endless chunks of one-mile square blocks, which in turn several country blocks formed square townships, and it turn, severa
l square townships formed counties. Ryan’s family farm’s property, on the south side of a country block, butted up to her family’s property, located almost directly across on the north side of the country block, so while technically they were immediate neighbors, their houses were almost two miles apart via roads, though they were about a mile apart physically. That meant he knew he could walk home from her house in about twenty minutes, though it was quite a hike across a few fields and a heavy stretch of woods.

  In this case, Sarah Mason’s brother had practice after school, and Sarah’s mom had driven up to Grand Rapids to visit her mother for a few days. Sarah’s dad didn’t get home from work until after six, since he had a meeting all day in Lansing, and then he had to pick up her brother from practice. This meant that Sarah was home by herself until at least then. Sarah coyly suggested that perhaps Ryan could come over after school for a while; a suggestion that Ryan found immediately and irresistibly appealing, as they had only been dating for three weeks, although they had known each other for years. He only hoped, but didn’t dare speculate, lest even the thought ruin the remote possibility, that Sarah’s ulterior motive might be well, to…you know…that. What every eighteen-year old boy dreams and fantasize endlessly about. Hormones make it a demanding priority at that age. It’s an obsession, over which there is no control. It’s a whipsaw ride that every man must go through, and there’s no choice but to ride that rollercoaster to completion.

  Once he knew of the plans after school, the school day couldn’t pass fast enough for him. Every second ticked by, painfully slow. He rushed between each class, anxious to get the day over with. Even his friend Jeremy wanted to know what the fuck was up with him at lunchtime, but Ryan, anxious to avoid jinxing anything, made no mention of the plans with Sarah Mason after school. Ryan assumed that if he told Jeremy that he’s going to Sarah’s house after school, by the time it got back to Sarah, the rumor mill would have morphed his plans into an orgy at Sarah Mason’s house at 3:30 PM; please bring a midget, toilet plunger, and whip cream. The next thing he knows he’s getting dumped by Sarah and kicked in the balls at the same time with no fucking idea what he’s done wrong. More out of instinct (which in this case is correct), he thinks it’s far better to keep his fucking mouth shut, which he does, though it does take a remarkable amount of self-restraint, something of which teenage boys have in considerable short supply.

  Ryan walked downhill, the woods gloomy and dark in the gully below as the sun slid even further below the horizon to his right. The hill’s uphill slope off to the right masked the sunset even further, and he shuddered involuntarily as he followed the logging road down towards the edge of the swamp. A feeder road off to his left cut out to a point out by a stand of cedars in the east, where there was a productive deer blind that everyone fought for the right to sit in every year, and he stopped to look down this feeder road.

  Except there was one extra footstep behind him that apparently had been matching his stride, and he froze, not even taking another breath. He turned around slowly, switching instantly to stealth mode, as though he were hunting, though whoever was following him had to have been watching him closely to only take that one extra step. Still, he turned and peered down the logging road behind him. The view was uphill, and the clear sky behind him and the uphill slope would have silhouetted someone very starkly against the backdrop of sky.

  There was no one he could discern. He stood stock still, scanning the woods carefully. There was no sound. No animals. No sign of anyone. The crawling sensation was back in full force, and he was shivering lightly, as much from cold as from fear.

  Part of his mind told him reasonably that there was nothing to fear; but human instincts are powerful, and a lone human out at dusk feels powerfully vulnerable. Fight or flight was keyed up and in high gear. Ryan knew he wasn’t going to feel comfortable until he was safe at home.

  He shuddered lightly, and realized he wasn’t going to get home any sooner standing here fucking around and chasing a case of the willies. He started walking again, straining to hear footsteps, but he only heard his own. He stopped again, listening for the extra footfall, but there was no sound. He took a few more steps, and then stopped again. Still nothing, and now he was unsure he had even heard the extra footstep the first time, and was feeling foolishly frightened, like a young child freaked out by the idea of a monster in the closet. He turned and started walking again, trying to force his mind back to the afternoon alone with Sarah Mason. Ah, yes. Sarah.

  They had gotten off the bus after school, and had gone into her house. She had given him the grand tour of the house, and then she had suggested they play video games on the big flat screen in the family room above the mantel of the fireplace. She was reaching up for an extra video game controller on the shelf. Her somewhat sheer blouse had pulled tightly against her breast as she had reached up, molding the fullness of the side swell of her breast very nicely, highlighting what was clearly a black lace bra. She turned to look at him, and he froze in sudden fright; his needles pegged over to the right in complete overload. She had noticed him staring at her breast, and she was his girlfriend—what was the protocol here? Worse yet, when she turned to look at him, still reaching for the controller, he could clearly see that her nipple was hard, erect, and pushing at the fabric of her sheer blouse, and now she was looking downward at the front of his pants. With sudden and numbing horror, he realized that he had involuntarily erected a pup tent in his pants, but then he was confused as he realized that she wasn’t annoyed or disgusted, as a small smile was starting to dawn on her face…

  Ryan stopped suddenly on the logging path, at the edge of the swamp, was instantly very confused. The old trouser mouse, half-aroused at the memory he had been pursuing, instantly lost any and all interest and retreated in confusion as the crawling sensation returned in full force and an icy skeleton of fear seized his spine, forcing him to stand rigid, eyes wide in shock for a few moment.

  Ryan knew the woods like the back of his hand. He looked around, and peered into the gloom, trying to get his bearings. Near as he could tell, he hadn’t turned himself around, and he was still facing south towards his farm, with the hill still on the west blocking the fading sunset, and the swamp on the east. However, Ryan didn’t recognize the old twisted oak tree sitting on the edge of the swamp; although one could hardly miss the gnarled old tree, the tree had to have once been a majestic behemoth.

  What was left behind of the tree’s majestic hulk, however, was unforgettable, which was why Ryan was confused. The rotted and twisted core was a malignant eyesore, a twisted hulk that had suffered a blast of lightning at some point in the past and refused to give in to the ravages of time, a beast that was long past its prime. The tree was a landmark in its own right, and therefore Ryan clearly would have known about this tree, if it was anywhere on this property. Therefore, either it was new, or Ryan was lost.

  The problem was, remove the tree from the equation, and Ryan wasn’t lost. He held up his hand, and blocked the tree from his vision. He knew exactly where he was. He was about halfway home, and despite the momentary confusion, his homing radar was on track. He hadn’t lost track of time. Despite its apparent piss-poor condition, the tree had not been rotting away in this neck of the woods for an extended period. Ryan had no clue where the fuck it came from, but it sure the fuck wasn’t here last week

  "Gnarly, dude," he thought haphazardly, as he stared at the tree, and wondered how the tree had been transplanted without disturbing anything else. The leaves and the dirt weren’t disturbed. The roots looked to be intact, and driven deep and wide into the forest floor. The type of equipment necessary to move a tree of this size would have left deep scars in the woods that would have been visible for several years afterwards, unless somebody spent considerable expense to clean up afterwards, and even that would have been visible for a few seasons, probably. Ryan had been down this path just a few days ago. It was impossible that this tree had been transplanted within the last few days.<
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  The sun was now gone completely from the horizon, and the gloom brightened slightly. Ryan was used to that. Ryan didn’t know the astronomical reasons why, but there always seemed to be three cycles during sunset where the light progressively got a little darker, then a little lighter, then a lot darker, then a little lighter, and so on as darkness progressed. This is just how twilight progressed through its phases.

  Despite the chill, and the lack of breeze, a fog was rising in the swamp behind the twisted oak tree. It lifted slowly above the grasses and cattails, and started outpouring into breaks in the brush surrounding the edge of the swamp, forming tendrils. The top of the mist rose and fell slowly, like a slowly breathing behemoth with a malignant life of its own.

  The tendrils of mist were a transparent milky white that at first pooled at the base of the brush around the edge of the swamp, but then as they grew, started to flow slowly away from the edge of the swamp. Ryan stood still fascinated in the grey gloom of twilight. He glanced at the feeder road, and saw fog drifting across the roadway there, too.

  The fog had reached the base of the twisted tree already, and Ryan could see that there was a light swirling motion within the tendrils of the fog, yet there was no breeze, and that creepy-crawly sensation gripped him again as he shuddered and took a hesitant step backwards away from the fog.

  The temperature seemed to have dropped further, and from within the swamp, he heard a low and guttural moan, extended and deep, like a bull gator through a distorted amplifier. Ryan felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck, and he scampered backwards up the path, still facing the source of the sound, but completely unnerved now. He thought the silence was bad, but the unknown noise was clearly worse. Michigan didn’t have gators, and certainly not large overgrown gators, by the sound of that thing.